Space Out

102 Pages·2005·2.68 MB·English

by  Sotirios Kotoulas (auth.)

1
RIEAeuropa Concept Series
Editor: Lebbeus Woods
Sotirios Kotoulas
SPACE OUT
c/o RIEA (Research Institute for Experimental Architecture)
Europa, Bern, Switzerland
This work is subject to copyright.
All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifi cally those of translation, reprinting, re-use
of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying
machines or similar means, and storage in data banks.
© 2005 Springer-Verlag/Wien and RIEAeuropa
Printed in Austria
Springer Wien New York is a part of
Springer Science + Business Media
springeronline.com
Printing: A. Holzhausen Druck & Medien GmbH, 1140 Wien, Österreich
Printed on acid-free and chlorine-free bleached paper
With numerous illustrations
SPIN: 11383338
CIP data applied for
ISSN 1610-0719
ISBN 10 3-211-24488-3 Springer Wien New York
ISBN 13 978-3-211-24488-3 Springer Wien New York
Editor
Lebbeus Woods
Photography
Tina Tyrell, Sotirios Kotoulas
Graphic design
H1reber, büro destruct, Bern, 2005
4
To my friend, the late architect, Dr. Dimitrios N. Styliaras.
6
Acknowledgements
Lebbeus Woods, for his trust and support. Anthony Vidler, Anders Abraham, Sean Sculley, Dwayne Oyler. Nicholas Kotoulas
for sharing his knowledge of outer space. Konstantine, Chrysoula and Voula Kotoulas, Zab, H1, David Marold, Guy Lafranchi,
Tina Tyrell, Larry Newitt and the Geomagnetic Laboratory, Ottawa. Natural Resources Canada, Government of Canada. Edward
Atkinson and the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Government of Nunavut, Igloolik. World Data Centre for
Geomagnetism, Kyoto. Hudson Bay Company Archives, Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg. National Film Board of Canada, Montreal.
On the next level: Alex Kwartler, Jonah Corne, John Shimkus, Rafael Bauer, Paul Granger, Konstantine Papadimitricopoulos,
Nikos Katsaounis, Guy Spyropoulos.
This work was made during the spring semester of 2003 at The Cooper Union.
Maps 1 though 6: 38”x38” graphite on cotton paper.
Construction: basswood: 96”x101/2”x 22”.
Photographs: Tina Tyrell (cover, 76, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 94, 95).
p. 8 “Crossing Boothia Peninsula, April, 1926.”
HBCA Photographs 1987/363-D-19/50(N15730)
p. 9 “Building snow-houses on trail from Frobisher Bay to Lake Harbour in 1918” Photographer: J. Cantley
HBCA Photographs 1987/363-E-400/56(N15731)
p. 12,13 “Regiones Sub Polo Arctico” By J. Blaeu. 50 x 68 cm; 20”x 233/4“
HBCA Maps G.3/48
p. 24 [Sketch map of the routes between Cumberland House and Split Lake ‘Drawn by Cha chay pay way ti May 1806’]. In Peter Fidler’s
Journal of Exploration. 23.2x36.8 cm; 91/4 “x141/2”
HBCA Maps E.3/4 fo. 13d (N3354)
p. 25 [Sketch maps ‘Drawn by Thoo ool del 29th April 1809’ of routes from ‘Athapescow Lake’ to ‘Sea Coast’] (top). Iskemo sketch
[coast line from Churchill to Chesterfi eld Inlet ‘Drawn by Nay hek til Iok an Iskemo 40 years of age, 8th July 1809’] (lower). Redrawn
by Peter Fidler.
HBCA Maps E.3/4 fo. 16 (N6479)
p. 30 Operational Navigation Chart, New York Public Library, ONC A-O, 1980.
p. 32 A large sunspot group photographed on May 17, 1951. (Photograph from Mount Wilson and Las Campanas Observatories),
Courtesy of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institute of Washington.
p. 33 [From ‘The Sunspot-Activity in the Years 1610–1960 by M. Waldmeier. Schultess & Co. Zurich [1961]: courtesy of M. Waldmeier.]
p. 44 Magnetic Declination Chart of Canada 2000. Natural Resources Canada, Geological survey of Canada.
7
SOTIRIOS KOTOULAS
Born in Winnipeg, Canada.
Studied piano, theory and harmony with the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, (1984-1998).
Educated in Architecture at The Cooper Union (1998-2003).
Received the Abraham E. Kazan award for Urban Design Studies.
He designed and followed the construction of a house for his family in Winnipeg (1996-2001).
Guest critic at architecture schools in Canada, Europe and the United States.
His work has been published in several architectural journals and televised on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Forum House proposal received the Prix de Public from the citizens of Winnipeg (2004).
He is currently designing a house on the island of Seriphos, Greece.
Lives in New York City.
8
Crossing Boothia Peninsula, April, 1926.
9
Building snow-houses on trail from Frobisher Bay to Lake Harbour in 1918. Photographer: J. Cantley.
10
Editor’s introduction
It is rare to encounter basic research in the fi eld of architecture, but this publication gives us a chance
to do so. By its nature, basic research opens up new and unfamiliar domains that address the founda-
tions of our knowledge. Architects, absorbed as they are in contemporary problems of design, devote
little time to questioning the assumptions underlying their work. What is space? How do we know it?
What constitutes its reality, its physical fabric? What material forces lying beyond the realm of the
visual shape the physicality of space and human comprehension of it?
Our present world is greatly impacted by the invisible, and most extensively by a focus of the author’s
research, electromagnetic forces. Computers and the internet, satellites and cell phones, indeed, all
of the electronic instrumentation our globally interconnected civilization increasingly relies upon for
cohesion, engage the range of an electromagnetic spectrum of which visible light is but a sliver. In
a palpable sense, we already inhabit electromagnetic space and are part of its constituency, as the
term ‘cyberspace’ attempts to acknowledge. The reason we do not know where cyberspace is, or
when we are in it, or how it looks and feels when we are is because our conceptual and perceptual
faculties are stuck in older ideas of space. We are hemmed in by our present assumptions and by
our inability to visualize, and thus physically experience, space that we cannot measure by means we
already know. The author aims to change this by bringing the invisible into the realm of the visible.
Without losing his sense of awe, or reducing the immeasurable, he accomplishes his mission by
traveling to polar regions of the far north, to the geographical edges, if not the metaphysical limits,
of our present civilization, where the visual dimension of our experience is distorted by extreme
conditions. He recognizes it as a chance to not only extend our knowledge of ourselves and what we
create, but to add something new to the apparatus of our understanding. His is a polar expedition of
the mind, and the territories – conceptual and physical – his rigorous and imaginative explorations
reveal are claimed by him, quite appropriately, in the name of architecture.
Lebbeus Woods